12/02/2010 @ 10:40AM

Paying A Fortune For Virtual Property

Earlier this month Yan Panasjuk paid a whopping $335,000 to Jon Jacobs to buy a large portion of Jacobs’ popular Entropia destination Club Neverdie, including eight bio-domes, space docks, a stadium, club and mall. This was hardly just another real estate deal, however. Panasjuk paid real money for something that exists only in the online virtual world.

Why would Panasjuk, a 35-year-old software engineer living in Boston, do that? There’s money to be made. Entropia is an online game that has a real cash economy–players can exchange Project Entropia dollars for real U.S. dollars at a fixed 10:1 exchange rate, enabling virtual entrepreneurs to start businesses in the game. Jacobs, for instance, was making $200,000 a year in revenue from sales of virtual goods and services before selling Club Neverdie. In Entropia, which is an asteroid, Panasjuk is the avatar John “Foma” Kalun, who has been a player for a decade.

Panasjuk says he has big plans for the yet-to-be-renamed Club Neverdie property that include major upgrades “unique to any virtual universe area.” He wants to be able to spend about 40 to 60 hours a week now basically making running the asteroid a full-time job. (He’ll be cutting back on the time he spends developing software in real life.) He thinks he will eventually be able to generate the same level of revenue Jacobs was, if not more, given a few years.

Paying a Lot For Nothing . . .

Crystal Palace Space Station

Price: $330,000

This purchase, made last December, was the biggest before Panasjuk’s. The buyer: Buzz “Erik” Lightyear, who reportedly bought the space station in Entropia in an auction for $330,000. Lightyear’s luxurious new property is expected to bring in significant revenue from its frequent visitors.

Amsterdam

Price: $50,000

Sex sells–in both the real world and the virtual. Kevin Alderman built an adult-oriented digital simulation of Amsterdam in Second Life. He sold the virtual property through
eBay
for a tidy sum of $50,000 in 2007 to an unknown seller going by the name “nedstede2769.”

Treasure Island

Price: $26,500

In 2004 David “Deathifier” Storey became the Guinness World Record holder for “most valuable object that is virtual” when he purchased an island in the Entropia for 265,000 Entropian dollars, or $26,500 at current exchange rates. Storey set up a rare-game preserve business on the island, which he says draws around $100,000 in revenue per year.

Anatomically Correct Skeleton

Price sought: $12,766

In the Second Life online world, where users can create and market their own goods, the creator of this model skeleton is asking $12,766 at current exchange rates. The seller, listed as Ollie Kubrick, says it is the “most advanced sculpty skeleton” in Second Life and took 200 hours to produce.

Dragon Sabre

Price: $870

In 2005 Shanghai gamer Qiu Chengwei, who played the online game Legend of Mir 3, lent fellow gamer Zhu Caoyuan his powerful sword, Dragon Sabre. When Zhu sold Qiu’s sword on eBay for $870, Qiu took real-world revenge by stabbing Zhu in the chest and killing him.